98 lines
3.7 KiB
Groff
98 lines
3.7 KiB
Groff
.TH MAIL 1
|
|
.SH NAME
|
|
mail \- send and receive electronic mail
|
|
.SH SYNOPSIS
|
|
\fBmail\fR [\fB\-epqr\fR] [\fB\-f\fR \fIfile\fR]
|
|
.br
|
|
\fBmail\fR [\fB\-dtv\fR] [\fB\-s\fR \fIsubject\fR] \fIuser\fR [...]
|
|
.br
|
|
.de FL
|
|
.TP
|
|
\\fB\\$1\\fR
|
|
\\$2
|
|
..
|
|
.de EX
|
|
.TP 20
|
|
\\fB\\$1\\fR
|
|
# \\$2
|
|
..
|
|
.SH OPTIONS
|
|
.FL "\-e" "Exit with status TRUE or FALSE to indicate if there is mail in mailbox"
|
|
.FL "\-p" "Print all mail and then exit"
|
|
.FL "\-q" "Quit program if SIGINT received"
|
|
.FL "\-r" "Reverse print order, i.e., print oldest first"
|
|
.FL "\-f" "Use \fIfile\fR instead of \fI/usr/spool/mail/user\fR as mailbox"
|
|
.PP
|
|
.FL "\-d" "Force use of the shell variable \fIMAILER\fR"
|
|
.FL "\-t" "Show distribution list as Dist: header in message"
|
|
.FL "\-v" "Verbose mode (passed on to \fIMAILER\fR)"
|
|
.FL "\-s" "Use Subject: \fIsubject\fR"
|
|
.SH EXAMPLES
|
|
.EX "mail ast" "Send a message to \fIast\fR"
|
|
.EX "mail" "Read your mail"
|
|
.EX "cat mail.cdiff | mail -s ''Here's the diff!'' asw " "Pipe program output to mail with a subject line"
|
|
.EX "mail -f /usr/spool/mail/asw" "How root can read asw's mail"
|
|
.SH DESCRIPTION
|
|
.PP
|
|
\fIMail\fR is an extremely simple electronic mail program. It can be used
|
|
to send or receive email on a single
|
|
\s-2MINIX\s+2
|
|
system, in which case it functions
|
|
as user agent and local delivery agent.
|
|
If the flag \fIMAILER\fR is defined in \fImail.c\fR,
|
|
it can also call a trans\%port agent to handle remote mail as well.
|
|
No such agent is supplied with
|
|
\s-2MINIX\s+2.
|
|
.PP
|
|
When called by \fIuser\fR with no arguments, it examines the mailbox
|
|
\fI/usr/spool/mail/user\fR, prints one message (depending on the \fB\-r\fR
|
|
flag), and waits for one of the following commands:
|
|
.PP
|
|
.nf
|
|
.ta 0.25i 1.25i
|
|
<newline> Go to the next message
|
|
\- Print the previous message
|
|
!command Fork off a shell and execute \fIcommand\fR
|
|
CTRL-D Update the mailbox and quit (same as q)
|
|
d Delete the current message and go to the next one
|
|
q Update the mailbox and quit (same as CTRL-D)
|
|
p Print the current message again
|
|
s [\fIfile\fR] Save message in the named file
|
|
x Exit without updating the mailbox
|
|
.PP
|
|
.PP
|
|
To send mail, the program is called with the name of one or more recipients as
|
|
arguments. The mail is sent, along with a postmark line containing the date.
|
|
For local delivery, a file named after each recipient in the directory
|
|
\fI/usr/spool/mail\fR must be writable. If a spool file does not exist for
|
|
a recipient it will be created.
|
|
.PP
|
|
If the directory \fI/usr/spool/mail\fR does not exist then the mail is
|
|
dumped on the console, so that system programs have a way to notify
|
|
a user on a system that does not have a mail spool.
|
|
.PP
|
|
The received mail contains a To: header showing the recipient. If there
|
|
are multiple recipients and the \fB\-t\fR option is specified each recipient
|
|
will also see a Dist: header line showing the other recipients.
|
|
.PP
|
|
The \fB\-s\fR option allows a subject to be specified. The subject must be
|
|
quoted if it contains spaces. If no subject is specified the mail
|
|
will be delivered with Subject: No subject.
|
|
.SH NOTES
|
|
The \fB\-s\fR option was added to make this simple mail program
|
|
consistent with mail programs found in other *nix variants. Many
|
|
programs, including the version of cron distributed with Minix releases
|
|
2.0.3 and later, report their outcome by piping output to the mail
|
|
program in order to send a mail message to root in lieu of writing a
|
|
log file. Such programs often expect the mail program to accept a
|
|
subject line using this option.
|
|
.SH BUGS
|
|
If an external \fIMAILER\fR is used it is likely the conditional code
|
|
supporting this will need some editing to be made to work correctly.
|
|
.SH AUTHOR
|
|
The original mail program for Minix was written by Peter B. Housel.
|
|
The -e and -t options were added by C. W. Rose. The -s option was added
|
|
by A. S. Woodhull. This man page revised by ASW 2003-07-18.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|